BLOG: Expansion Joint News, Information, Observations

The AASHTO Innovation
Initiative advances
innovation from the grassroots up: by agencies, for agencies,
peer-to-peer. The program actively seeks out proven advancements
in transportation technology, investing time and money to accelerate
their adoption by agencies nationwide. Each year, the program
selects highly valuable technologies, processes, software, or other
innovations that have been adopted by at least one agency, are
proven in use, and will be of significant benefit to
other agencies.

Additionally Selected Technologies (ASTs)

The AII cannot always fund all of the nominated technologies that
are ready for implementation and stand out above the rest.
Because of this the AII has created this new designation to promote
these technologies.
BEJSis
the only technology chosen in 2014 for three categories out of four:
Construction, Maintenance, and Design.

With two new patents issued in August and another in June this year,
EMSEAL continues to demonstrate its commitment to investment in
R&D and innovation in the field of expansion joint sealing and
fire-proofing. The
EMSHIELD
line of all-in-one expansion joint systems provides designers with a
new freedom from cumbersome and less-effective underslab and
multi-product solutions for floor and wall fire-proofing, sealing,
insulating and sound blocking.

With these recent awards EMSEAL adds to its considerable list of
active patents, and has many more pending, in its field. The
company’s body of patents now in the public domain is nearly as long
and further demonstrates its decades-long commitment to raising the
bar on effectiveness and simplicity-of-installation of these
building components so critical to life-safety as well as to the
high performance expectations of the modern built environment.

“We
have never been content just to copy what’s already out there,”
comments Dan O’Hayer, EMSEAL’s President. “Innovate, Don’t Imitate”
has long been our R&D mantra.”

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ--As
the Meadowlands prepares itself for its biggest day in football--Superbowl
XLVIII--one thing is for sure--the stadium expansion joints are
ready.

In the same way that
the Meadowlands ushered in the era of billion dollar stadiums, it
also marked a watershed in the structural expansion joint industry.
With seismicstadium
expansion joints10-inches
(250mm) wide, and a design requirement that they be watertight at
the deck surface, through all direction and plane changes, between
different deck and wall technologies, and capable of handling
rolling point loads in concourses and split-slab conditions on the
upper decks, the scope of performance expectations was
extraordinary.

The Meadowhall Centre in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, is a truly
massive retail attraction offering 280 stores providing 1.5 million
square feet of retail space. The popularity of the centre has seen
it increase its parking provision over the years, including the
building of new parking decks. It now provides 12,000 free parking
spaces, as well as access via rail and Sheffield’s Supertram system.
The Meadowhall Centre has won many awards for its retail offers and
its engineering. But the centre also had a problem. Over a decade of
traffic had exposed the reality that the complex’s parking structure
was leaking. The cause was something quite simple – the failure of
rubber used to seal the car park’s expansion joints (also known as
movement joints).

EMSEAL's highly
praised, SWRI-Validated Expansion Joint Training program has been a
draw this year for more than 150 architects, engineers, consultants,
contractors, distributors and reps from around the world.

After 10 years of
watertight operation, the building expansion joints at 100 Cambridge
Street, Boston are trouble-free.

This means the owners
aren't spending money on maintenance. It also means they have no
leaks into tenantable space.

The complex that
includes the Saltonstall government office building, luxury condos,
and retail has benefited as a result, from a cornerstone of EMSEAL's
expansion joint philosophy--do the work up front and provide the
best quality to ensure the lowest total cost of ownership expansion
joints possible.

The technologies
employed are
COLORSEAL in the walls and EMSEAL's
FP-series in the
plaza deck.

Now SJS and it's
UL2079 certified fire-rated version,
SJS-FR, are increasingly being used in interiors.

The
El Dorado International Airport in Bogota Columbia recently
chose SJS-FR for its ease of installation, ease of work phasing and
for the built-in fire rating. Installation from the floor
surface eliminates the need to access the underside of the slabs
while
non-invasive anchoring simplifies installation and reduces
installation time.

“What
is preferred: all pre-compressed foam joints for roof and walls or
RoofJoint with foam for verticals? What are the criteria for
specifying one over the other?”

The answer to the first question is, “both”.

The best roof design--where the desire in today’s world of advancing
building science is for a totally sealed, best insulated building
envelope--is to install the
RoofJoint over
HORIZONTAL COLORSEAL in the roof and
SEISMIC COLORSEAL in the walls and connect the walls to the
RoofJoint with the SEISMIC COLORSEAL RoofJoint Closures.

For both cavity wall and solid wall construction, the best roof
expansion joint designs look like this:

They underscore how gutters conceal leaks, resulting in structural
damage that is dangerous and far more costly than the price of an
expansion joint that works.

From
EMSEAL, the Westborough, MA
based company that sealed all 6,514 windows on the
Empire State Building LEED Gold retrofit,
comes news of their own more local sustainability efforts. Like this
massive project, which resulted in a 38% energy savings for the
102-floor, 2,900,000 square foot, New York skyscraper, EMSEAL has
similarly achieved a substantial reduction in energy usage due to
its recent efforts facilitated by the
Sustainable Business Leader Program (SBLP).

EMSEAL is recognized by SBLP as a leader in sustainable business and
partner in debunking the myth that companies must choose between
profitability and sustainability.

Says
EMSEAL CEO Lester Hensley, “Because of our financial and cultural
success with this program, I would encourage any and all local
businesses to explore SBLP certification, or to pursue similar local
and national sustainable business initiatives.” _________________________________________<more>
Posted June 29, 2012--Jordan Hensley

Expansion jointscan
be said to be among the most critical aspects of design in relation
to building performance undergeological
and weather extremes.

In the wake of the recentearthquake,hurricane
Irene,
andtropical
storm Lee,
those of us on the East Coast are being given repeated reminders
of a universal truth--storms and shakes need to the baseline for
our structural design.

A new
line of breakthrough expansion joint products means you can
get extreme protection built into a single product installation
with solutions for walls, floors, solid and split slabs.Now
is a logical time to reflect on design practice as it relates to
expansion joint sizing and product selection in relation to
earthquakes and storm-force-wind driven rain.

Do Expansion Joint Leaks Plague your Projects?

"We have come
to realize that our projects show more problems with expansion
joints than all other product categories combined. Yet, expansion
joints are a miniscule part of projects in terms of construction
costs.
How can we work together to produce trouble-free joint seals?"

Received in a letter to
our firm in 1990, this quote has been the basis of EMSEAL's mission
for 20+ years. Less than 1/2 of one percent
of the budget of a structure is typically spent on expansion joints.
In fact less than one percent is usually spent on all
waterproofing. Yet, waterproofing related issues constitute a lions
share of post-tenancy complaints and revenue disruption and
are involved in an estimated 90% of construction-related lawsuits.

We can "work together" to produce trouble-free joint seals. It
involves a collaborative process, begun early in design stage
and includes the incorporation of a couple of simple sheets to your
bid documents. Architects, engineers, and general and sub
contractors everywhere are adopting our "Think,
Design, Detail, Erect, Manufacture and Install 3-Dimensional
Expansion Joint Solutions"
approach to joint sealing. To find out how, schedule
an EMSEAL lunch seminar nowor
read more about it at emseal.com.

Try this: from a
deep, knees-bent squat, stand up to your full height and squat back
down again, slowly, taking 6 seconds to complete the cycle. Do
that 400 times.

Now squat down and stand
up 100 more times every 2 seconds.

Take a day to
recover, and then (don't try this) lie on your back over an 1850°F
(1010°C)
fire for two hours.

If your belly-button
doesn't reach more than 356°F
(180°C) AND your
head, toes and belly-button averaged together don't exceed 248°F
(120°C)
then you've passed. Oh, and you can't crumble and fall
completely into the fire either.

We are often asked
how long our products will last. The answer often is "we have
installations in place over 25 years old."

But one is never
really sure, until you go and take a look.

Seeing
the Guggenheim museum has been on my bucket list for a long time. I
can't believe it took so long for me to get there. All of
the anticipation did not, as it often can, result in disappointment.
I was duly impressed by the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright's
accomplishment--and enjoyed the art exhibit too.

The icing on the cake
came from the opportunity to inspect the going on twenty-year-old
installation of
COLORSEAL between the neighbors and the 1992, 9-story,
limestone-clad administration tower seen to the left of the original
museum in the photo above.

One
Install Does it All--Fire
Rating, Watertight, Traffic Durable, 100% movement. No anchors, no
fire-blankets, no gutters.

In another
industry first, EMSEAL has built the fire-rating into the
joint--this time for floor and deck joints subject to cars,
pedestrians, material handling equipment and other loads.

Installed
entirely from the deck or floor above, no utility lifts or holding
labor are required. And, installation and continuity of the fire
barrier is not compromised by under-slab obstructions from HVAC, electrical, plumbing or
mechanical equipment.

SJS-FR is
UL and ULC certified for joints from 4-10 inches with up to 100%
of joint size movement and meets
the requirements of ASTM E1966, ASTM E119 and ASTM E1399.

We
received an emailed photograph from one of our sales reps today.
Here it is:

It
shows pavers on a
split-slab plaza deck--buckled up, cracked, dislodged and
missing. The cause? Movement from the structural
expansion joint in the structural expansion joint below. So
why the mess? The owner of this plaza was the unfortunate
beneficiary of an attempt to save a few bucks by using a
"buried band-aid" expansion joint waterproofing solution.

This means that
rather than using a purpose-designed, watertight, plaza deck
expansion joint, a single-ply sheet of rubber was laid over the
joint and tied into the deck waterproofing system.

Swimming pools,
fountains, water parks and water features pose a real challenge in
joint sealing. Durability in chlorinated or salinated water,
combined with hydrostatic head pressure make these applications
particularly troublesome.

Over the past year,
EMSEAL has been simulating continuous head pressure immersion with
various pre-compressed sealant configurations and sealant
chemistries.

The result of this
research is
Submerseal. The unique crowned bellows configuration
combines with and epoxy adhesive and field-injected silicone sealant
bands and corner beads to produce a sealant system that resists both
hydrostatic head pressure as well as chemical attack from chlorine
concentrations typical of swimming pools.

For submerged applications
Submerseal has been tested in a hydrostatic-head pressure
simulator to continuously resist water pressure at
various levels without leaking. Reference the
depth table at the
Submersealproduct page for joint-width and
corresponding allowable depths and/or
consult
EMSEAL for application specific conditions.

Installation of Submerseal in a
12-foot deep swimming pool at a waterpark.

Over
the years, we have been repeatedly asked for a cost-effective way to
mate mullion to window or wall at partitions.

Partition closures seal the gaps created by semi-permanent, reconfigurable and even
permanent partition walls. Acoustical privacy, it seems, is
the biggest problem created when demising walls are added after the
shell of the building is already in place. Not far behind the
blocking of sound is the control of HVAC balance--keeping separately
zoned spaces from influencing one another is an endless tenancy
contention.

As we have learned
from independent-laboratory-conducted
sound attenuation studies, EMSEAL products are remarkably adept
at blocking sound.

From
similar studies on the thermal insulating properties of our
products, we have proved some
very good R-Values as well. We pioneered
QuietJoint for a project in California where office partitions
abut an exterior curtainwall system. The horizontal mullions
(just as in the photo above) created a gap that was allowing sound
to pass between rooms.
QuietJoint quickly, and aesthetically filled the gap and stopped
the noise.

A delightful little
ballpark, Mellissa Cook Stadium proudly serves Notre Dame's Fighting
Irish softball team. It also proudly serves the University's
engineering department as a facility that was waterproof and did not
leak since the day it was built.

This is in large part
due to the selection of EMSEAL's
DSM SYSTEM for the
expansion joints. DSM is one of EMSEAL's line of
precompressed, preformed joint sealants that offers a durable
alternative to backer rod and wet sealants. In joints as small
as 1/2" and up to 1 3/4" sometimes varying across that entire range
in a single run, the DSM SYSTEM was sized to suit the changing joint
widths.

Airport
Floor Expansion Joints and the Common Law of Business Balance...in
other words, "you get what you pay for".

(click images to enlarge)

When Richmond International
Airport undertook a major upgrade and expansion in 2008, it joined a
growing list of airports that have, or are over time, upgrading
their interior floor expansion joints to EMSEAL
MIGUTRANS. Why? The run-of-the-mill floor expansion
joints available from a dozen manufacturers are victims of a race to
the bottom of quality. Driven by price, aluminum grade,
extrusion thickness, and anchoring methods have been slowly
downgraded. The result are joints that cannot handle the
point-loads of modern building floors.

As nineteenth
century observer of society and the construction arts, John Ruskin
commented:

“It
is unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.
When you pay too much you lose a little money—that is all. When
you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the
thing you bought was incapable of doing the things it was bought
to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a
little and getting a lot. It can’t be done. If you deal with
the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you
run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for
something better.”

A Waterproof Solution for the Plaza Deck at
New York's Famous Lincoln Center

The very public plaza
at North America’s premier music venue, Lincoln Center in New York City,
had a continuing problem with leaking plaza expansion joints. Almost
since its initial construction in 1959, it had been leaking water from
the grand plaza to the underground parking levels below. Two subsequent
retrofits of new expansion joint systems still failed to remedy the
leaks. The fourth attempt at a fix was planned to be an expensive custom
solution designed exclusively for Lincoln Center involving years of
engineering and a significant manufacturing and installation cost to the
developers. And even then it would be an untested solution hoping to
alleviate the problem.

In 2008 EMSEAL entered the discussion, introduced after recent successes
at other high-profile New York City installations including Yankee
Stadium. After reviewing EMSEAL waterproofing projects in New York and
Washington, DC, the decision was made to install
EMSEAL’s MIGUTAN system. With a
30-year track record and tens of
thousands of feet installed and functioning, the
MIGUTAN expansion joint system has proven to be well suited for
applications, particularly over occupied space, where the totally
watertight integration of expansion joint and deck membrane are a
fundamental requirement of the
split-slab construction as found on this
plaza deck. Its unique design incorporates side membranes which
integrate with the deck waterproofing system to form a
continuous, completely watertight system. After installation the final
view for pedestrians is that of a
simple pair of closely aligned steel capping strips straddling a
thermosplastic rubber gland.

Technical personnel
at EMSEAL created
CAD details and manufacturing plans to adequately address the
hundreds of feet of plaza expansion joint to be installed in this
retrofit application. They paid particular attention to maintaining
continuity of seal
through the transitions at
direction changes around columns as well as at terminations.

The result today is a watertight solution at Lincoln Center’s
famed plaza. Exposed to severe water, snow and the temperature ranges
found in the northeast United States, as well as hundreds of thousands
of visitors and accompanying foot traffic each year, EMSEAL’s
MIGUTAN
system is keeping water from leaking through the deck. Avery Hall, the
Metropolitan Opera House, the NY State Theater and the Julliard School
of Music finally have a watertight public plaza deck worthy of the
Lincoln Center’s great fame.

Joining a
growing list of
owners and managers that are tired of noisy, leaky expansion joints,
Boston Properties is upgrading many of its joints to EMSEAL. At
this location at and entrance to it's vast underground parking deck the
parking deck joint selection was
SJS
SYSTEM.

Expansion joints for parking decks(above
left)
are often the leak point for water into lower level parking areas or
even occupied space below. Watertightness is therefore critical.
When design or structural factors cause joints to change plane or
direction is where most joints leak--often after the first rain storm.
EMSEAL uses a thermoplastic rubber in the manufacture of our
THERMAFLEX parking deck expansion joint system. This allows
the joint to be factory-welded to follow changes in plane and direction
while preserving
continuity of seal(above middle). While others have adopted the raw material to be
able to offer this feature, few make it the cornerstone of their
practice. In addition, EMSEAL is the only manufacturer that
routinely reinforces all factory welds with an additional layer of
thermoplastic rubber sheet. By doing so the full uncut strength of
the rubber is restored at all welds.

Anyone can make
joints watertight in cross-section. But
expansion joints exist in 3-D. Where they jog around columns;
go up a curb and over a sidewalk; or terminate into a vertical plane
surface like a wall or parapet, is where expansion joints leak.
Water tests (above right) should be a standard to ensure that
installation of transitions is watertight as well.

Over the last several years, EMSEAL and contractor
Richmond Primoid, Inc. have been
involved in a steady program of upgrades to Scott Stadium that includes
retrofitting failed and leaking expansion joints. The program has
been flexibly adapted to the university's sports schedule as well as
annual budgets.

The
custom-tailored solution takes into account the locations, traffic,
movement, and existing joint sizes at each expansion joint location.
Consequently systems from EMSEAL's entire
selection of stadium expansion joints have been utilized where they
are best suited.
SEISMIC
JOINT SYSTEM-SJS is the latest to be installed and was chose where
existing joints were too large for a winged-compression seal system like
THERMAFLEX
that was used elsewhere on the project.

The picture above left
illustrates the unique ability of SJS to ensure continuity of seal in
plane changes. The view is looking down over the railing at the
transition between the upper and lower seating bowls. It shows how
the expansion joint system has been supplied and installed to be
watertight throughout this transition.

Above right is a view
looking down the completed installation of the
SJS
SYSTEM in the seating bowl. The sandblasted coverplates are
skid resistant and feature a long chamfer on its edges to facilitate
pedestrian traffic. Other EMSEAL systems used on the project
include
double-sided SEISMIC COLORSEAL,
DSM SYSTEM,
SEISMIC COLORSEAL and
THERMAFLEX
with hundreds of factory-fabricated inside and outside transitions to
follow the treads and risers.

Fire-Rated Expansion Joint Sealants Selling Like Hot Cakes

Over 11,000 LF in first year of product launch proves EMSEAL’s
fire-rated hybrids are the state-of-the-art of joint sealing.

From
prisons to factories, military bases to schools, and airports to
stadiums the EMSHIELD product line is combining life-safety, sound
blocking and insulation with the traditional roles of sealants in
filling and sealing structural and other joint openings.

When we
launched our
DFR2 (for
floors and
decks) and
WFR2
(for concrete and
gypsum walls)
versions of our EMSHIELD product line, we knew that the years of R&D in
addressing the shortcomings of other technologies had been achieved. We
are hugely gratified by the market response to the product in the
less-than-one year since their launch.

The
bottom line: why wouldn’t you specify and install a product with an
inherent UL 2079 certified fire rating? There is no reason to
compromise life safety while at the same time satisfying ALL of the
functions of the wall or floor assembly into which the product is
installed.

EMSHIELD Installation is straightforward with no invasive anchors...

EMSHIELD is shipped precompressed to less
than the field measured joint size and held that way in shrink-wrapped,
hardboard packaging.

The shrink-wrap and hardboard are removed
and the foam begins to gradually expand. Epoxy is applied to the
foam and substrate.

The WFR2 material is installed into the
joint and connected to previously installed lengths or to
factory-fabricated transitions.
(for a .pdf of complete installation instructions
Click Here)

Imagine having to replace and install expansion joints in a massive
public works structure with a very small window of time to complete
the job. A temporarily drained river lock with concrete walls rising
over six stories tall, a bottom bed as wide as half the width of an NFL
football field, and four weeks to complete the project before the 90-ton
doors reopen to let the Mississippi river water flow back in, was the
challenge facing the crews working on the Port Allen (LA) Lock in the
summer of 2009.

Built and maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Port
Allen Lock is a crucial connection of shipping traffic between the
Mississippi river and the Intercoastal Waterway just west of Baton
Rouge, LA. In 2009 it was determined that, due to leak-induced
water-related subsidence, the 22 runs of expansion joints (each over 300
feet long) had to be replaced. The plan was to drain the lock and leave
it closed for repairs during a four week period. The substantial effect
on shipping traffic was secondary to the need to stop the erosion and
leaking at the Lock.

Python Corporation of Lacombe, LA was contracted to replace the
expansion joints. They contacted EMSEAL with an immediate request for
over 6,700 feet of EMSEAL’s DSM to be used as the
surface-seal and a containment barrier for an injected polyurethane grout system. The sealing performance of
DSM
acrylic-impregnated preformed foam was the determining factor in
choosing this product to replace the existing failed caulking. But
sealing performance had to also work with the project constraints
requiring quick installation and availability of product.

Prepared Joint
DSM Installed

The DSM System, as well as all other EMSEAL preformed foam sealants, is
able to be put in place quickly because its non-invasive installation
design utilizes the foam’s backpressure to firmly hold the DSM in place
within the joint gap. The substrate is simply re-smoothed, cleaned and
prepared with an epoxy adhesive and the DSM System is then installed
into the gap.

EMSEAL also had to meet a quick engineering and production timetable to
work within the four week installation period. EMSEAL’s large manufacturing plant focused their output on quickly turning out the
sizable quantity of DSM. Because there were variations of widths within
the gaps throughout the Lock, each length was manufactured at a
predetermined width and labeled for specific locations to make the
installation move as quickly and correctly as possible.

The entire project proved to be a great success. The complete DSM order
was manufactured and delivered on time and the installation went quickly
enough to finish ahead of the Army Corps of Engineers’ schedule.
The Port Allen Lock project illustrates EMSEAL’s unique suitability and
popularity in large public works projectsPosted December 16, 2009
Lester Hensley

Answering the Challenge of
Watertight
Transitions
at Canadian Hospital

Transitions in expansion joints are often a weakness of the best
engineering designs. When executed in the field they dramatically slow
the installation process and are often the focus of a failing waterseal.
The best solution is having factory-fabricated transitions built
into the expansion system before it arrives at the jobsite. This
approach to manufacturing is in place at the expanded construction
taking place at North York General Hospital in Toronto Canada.

The hospital's new additions included the construction of a large
parking structure to handle the growing patient and staff population.
The finished project had to be watertight while handling the movements
of a large concrete structure in the extreme thermal conditions found in
Toronto. Expansion gaps were engineered into the designs and EMSEAL's
Thermaflex product line of watertight membrane/nosing systems was
chosen as the expansion joint throughout the parking decks.

Over 1500 feet of
TCR-500,
TCR-400 and TCR-300 was specified and installed. Much
of this length required transitions and turns to address the unique
characteristics of this parking garage with columns, multiple decks and
intersecting walls, parapets and roofs. To maintain the integrity and
watertightness of the system, EMSEAL factory-fabricated the almost 100
transitions involved in the system. Deck to wall, wall to wall and deck
to deck changes in direction and plane were all built into the system at
EMSEAL's Westborough, MA factory.

Especially noteworthy are transitions where different widths of sealant
join together. At North York General Hospital the differing gap widths
demanded that north-south expansion gaps require TCR-500 and east-west
gaps require the narrower TCR-400 or TCR-300. Each turn and tee
necessitated joining materials of different widths--all successfully
completed in the EMSEAL factory. The final system was delivered as a
series of lengths of membranes with transitions prefabricated and ready
to be installed.